From PROCULTHER to PROCULTHER-NET: building a European community for protecting cultural heritage at risk of disaster

PROCULTHER-NET, Protecting Cultural Heritage from the Consequences of Disasters-Network, is an initiative co-funded by the Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations-DG ECHO in the framework of the Union Civil Protection Mechanism - UCPM that aims at consolidating a thematic community focused on the protection of cultural heritage at risk of disaster within the EU Civil Protection Knowledge Network - KN and at fostering multidisciplinary and risk-based exchange practices to support and complement the efforts made by the European Union in the field of civil protection.

Launched in January 2022, PROCULTHER-NET will be implemented until June 2023 under the coordination of the Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers - Civil Protection Department (Italy) by the International Centre for the Study of Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property- ICCROM, the Ministry of Interior-Disaster and Emergency Management Authority - AFAD (Turkey), the German Archaeological Institute - DAI (Germany), the Ministére de l'Intérieur - Direction Générale de la Sécurité Civile et de la Gestion des Crises-DGSCGC (France), the Fondazione Hallgarten - Franchetti Centro Studi Villa Montesca-FCSVM, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Region Government of Castilla y León - JCyL (Spain), the Federal Agency for Technical Relief - THW (Germany), the Suor Orsola Benincasa University - UNISOB (Italy) and the University of Porto - UPORTO (Portugal).

The impact of natural and anthropic hazards on cultural heritage, exacerbated by the increasing effects of climate change and recently by the COVID-19 pandemic, is endangering and making cultural heritage more fragile, increasing the underlying disaster risk drivers. The Notre-Dame of Paris fire in 2019, the explosion in the Port of Beirut and the Izmir earthquake in 2020, the wildfire that devastated the Jagger Library of the University of Cape Town in 2021, the impact of the Russian invasion on Ukrainian cultural heritage, are only some of the most meaningful disastrous events stressing the urgency of increasing interoperability standards for the inclusion of cultural heritage protection within the operational structures of the UCPM.

In the last years, many steps forward have been made to identify common European elements of action and to draw shared technical and operational approaches to sustainably include the protection of cultural heritage in disaster risk management processes at national and European level. In particular, a part from the context of increasing natural and man-made risks, the PROMEDHE (2016 - 2018) and the PROCULTHER projects (2019 - 2021) have demonstrated the increasing need of encouraging cross sectoral cooperation among disaster risk managers, cultural heritage actors and knowledge holders to reduce risk of disaster.

Meanwhile, the PROCULTHER Consortium Partners (1) worked proactively in a process involving cultural heritage and disaster risk management actors from European Union Member States and UCPM Participating States as well as experts from international organisations active in both cultural heritage and disaster risk management. This consultative process has allowed, among other actions, to identify the “Key elements of a European Methodology to Address the Protection of Cultural Heritage during Emergencies” and to the elaboration of the minimum requirements of a UCPM-driven response module able to intervene and support national response actions worldwide for the protection of cultural heritage at risk.

In this sense, PROCULTHER-NET, eager to consolidate the results achieved so far, will draw on the extensive network of contacts and technical and operational content built up through the PROCULTHER project for ensuring a sustainable and comprehensive network-based exchange on issues that can increase the efficiency and effectiveness of civil protection and disaster risk management actions, as well as to inform decision makers and advocate for the inclusion of cultural heritage in disaster risk management processes at each territorial level.

To this end, PROCULTHER-NET will enlarge the thematic community focused on the protection of cultural heritage at risk of disaster and share knowledge, lessons learnt and best practices with a multi-risk approach to inform the KN.

(1) The Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers - Civil Protection Department (Italy), as Consortium coordinator, the Ministére de l'Intérieur - Direction Générale de la Sécurité Civile et de la Gestion des Crises - DGSCGC (France), the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Regional Government of Castilla y León (Spain), the Ministry of Interior-Disaster and Emergency Management Authority - AFAD (Turkey), the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property - ICCROM and the Fondazione Hallgarten – Franchetti Centro Studi Villa Montesca- FCSVM, with the participation of the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe.